SAUDI ARABIA In Riyadh, the ‘new Kaaba’ of Mohammed bin Salman

The Saudi crown prince unveiled the design for the Mukaab, the capital’s new urban center. An immense cube 400 meters high, wide and deep that embodies his “Vision 2030” for the modernization of the country. The fact that its shape is reminiscent of the holy building in the center of Mecca cannot be ignored.

Riyadh ( / Agencies) – A gigantic cube 400 meters high, wide and deep. A new heart of Riyadh that, in addition to housing hundreds of thousands of residents, along with luxury hotels, museums and entertainment venues, aspires to become the symbol of “Vision 2030”, the philosophy of the “new Saudi Arabia ” of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This will be the physiognomy of “Mukaab” (the cube), the new urban center of the Saudi capital that the heir to the throne of Riyadh presented in a big way in the last few hours with the usual display of renders and futuristic videos.

El Mukaab is the ideal continuation of Neom, the city that the Saudis have been building ex-novo in the north of the country for a few years, with the ambition of turning it into an alternative pole of international attraction to the large metropolises of the Gulf. A very long strip from the sea to the desert destined to accommodate 9 million people, albeit to the detriment of the Bedouins: at least 47 members of the Howeitat tribe were imprisoned or detained by the Saudi authorities for having resisted the measure of expropriation of land.

Now – as work continues on the Neom works – Mohammed bin Salman has thus revealed the complementary design of Riyadh’s new center. And it cannot go unnoticed that for this project, which will touch much more closely the life of the Saudis, the chosen imaginary is a gigantic cube, that is, the same geometric structure as the Kaaba, the black building in the center of Mecca. around which Muslim pilgrims converge. There are not a few Arabs who are already noticing it on social networks, ironizing about the “new Kaaba” of Mohammad bin Salman, much more devoted to the canons of the global economy than to the rigorism of Wahhabi Islam.

According to the announcement, the new center of Riyadh will be built at the intersection of King Salman and King Khalid streets, in the northwest of the city, on an area of ​​19 square kilometers, a 20-minute drive from the airport. The project will offer more than 25 million square meters of floor space, with more than 104,000 residential units, 9,000 hotel rooms and more than 980,000 square meters of commercial space, as well as 1.4 million square meters of offices, 620,000 square meters of recreational activities and 1.8 million square meters of space dedicated to community facilities.

According to Mohammed bin Salmad’s plans, works on Riyadh’s Mukaab should also be completed by the momentous date of 2030.